The Meaning of Life哈佛校长2008年毕业演讲

The Meaning of Life by Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust June 3, 2008

《生活的意义》凯瑟琳·吉尔平·福斯特（2007年10月就任哈佛第28任校长） 2008年6月3日

In the curious custom of this venerable institution, I find myself standing before you expected to impart words of lasting wisdom. Here I am in a pulpit, dressed like a Puritan minister –an apparition that would have horrified many of my distinguished forebears and perhaps rededicated some of them to the extirpation of witches. This moment would have propelled Increase and Cotton into a true “Mather lather”. But here I am and there you are and it is the moment of and for Veritas.

根据这所受人尊重的大学别具一格的传统，我站在你们面前，要为你们传授亘古不变的智慧。此刻，我站在讲台上，打扮得像个清教徒-我们的杰出先辈们可能会被我这幽灵似的形象吓坏了，也许还会让一些前辈们重新致力于铲除女巫的事业。而这一时刻可能会使因克瑞斯·马瑟和科顿·马瑟父子（因克瑞斯，哈佛第六任校长，任职期间与神职人员在宗教问题上出现纠纷，最终辞职和其子科顿在耶鲁任教）大为恼火。但是现在，我在这里，你们在台下，这一刻属于真理，也为真理而存在。

You have been undergraduates for four years. I have been president for not quite one. You have known three presidents; I one senior class. Where then lies the voice of experience? Maybe you should be offering the wisdom. Perhaps our roles could be reversed and I could, in Harvard Law School style, do cold calls for the next hour or so.

你们已经在这儿学习了四年，我担任校长却还不到一年。你们已经认识了三届校长，而我只认识你们这一届的学生。因此，我哪有什么经验之谈，或许我们应该呼唤角色，你们到台上展示智慧，而我坐在下面听你们说，像哈佛大学法学院的学生一样冷不丁的提出几个问题。

We all do seem to have made it to this point-more or less in one piece. Though I recently learned that we have not provided you with dinner since May 22. I know we need to wean you from Harvard in a figurative sense. I never knew we took it quite so literally.

在经历了诸多事情之后，我们似乎终于盼到了毕业这一时刻的到来-而且基本顺利，没出什么大的状况。最近我听说学校食堂从5月22日开始就已经向你们停止供应伙食。虽然“哈佛迟早会给你断奶”，但我没想到，学校断奶断的这样彻底。

But let’s return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. Let’s imagine this was a baccalaureate service in the form of Q&A, and you were asking the questions. “What is the meaning of life, President Faust? What were these four years at Harvard for? President Faust, you have learned something since you graduated from college exactly 40 years ago?” (Forty years. I’ll say it out loud since every detail of my life-and certainly the year of my Bryn Mawr degree-now seems to be publicly available. But please remember I was young for my class. )

刚才谈到提问题，现在我们还是接着这个话题讲吧。让我们假设这里是以问和答形式进行的哈佛大学本科毕业生大会。然后又有学生问我，“校长，您能为我解释一下生活的意义吗？我知道您已经大学毕业40年了，这40年里您一定学到了很多东西。”（40年！我可以与你们

分享我人生中的每一个细节，当然包括我获得布林茅尔女子学院学位的那一年。不过这些经历现在似乎都已经是众所周知了。但是还是要请你们记住：当时在我们班，我可算是年纪小的。）

In a way, you have been engaging me in this Q&A for the past year. On just these questions, although you have phrased them a bit more narrowly. And I have been trying to figure out how I might answer and, perhaps more intriguingly, why you were asking.

从某种意义上说，你们在过去一年就提给我提出诸多问题，尽管你们的问题的措辞会过于严密，但是我依旧很认真地思考要怎样回答你们的问题，同时对我来说也许更有趣的是，我会猜想你们为什么会提出这样的问题。

Let me explain. It actually began when met with the UC just after my appointment was announced in the winter of 2007. Then the questions continued when I had lunch at Kirkland House, dinner at Leverett, when I met with students in my office hours, even with some recent graduates I encountered abroad. The first thing you asked me about wasn’t curriculum or advising or faculty contact or even student space. In fact, it wasn’t alcohol policy. Instead, you repeatedly asked me: why are so many of us going to Wall Street? Why are we going in such numbers from Harvard to finance, consulting, i-banking?

请听我的解释。从2007年冬天我接任哈佛校长的消息公布后，我开始和哈佛理事会接触，不论是我在柯克兰宿舍吃午饭还是在李维特宿舍吃晚饭，或是在办公时间会见学生，甚至当我在国外遇见哈佛的毕业生时，我都会听到你们的问题。你们问我的第一个问题不是关于课业，不是向我征求意见，也不是简单的师生联系。相反，你们反复询问的问题是：为什么我们中那么多人去华尔街工作？为什么这么多学生从哈佛走向了金融机构，理财咨询机构，投资银行机构？

There are a number of ways to think about this question and how to answer it. There is the Willie Sutton approach. You may know that when he was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”Professors Claudia Goldin and Larry Kats, whom many of you have encountered in your economics concentration, offer a not dissimilar answer based on their study of student career choices since the seventies. They find it notable that, given the very high pecuniary rewards in finance, many students nonetheless still choose to do something else. Indeed, 37 of you have signed on with Teach for America; one of you will dance tango and work in dance therapy in Argentina; another will be engaged in agricultural development in Kenya; another, with an honors degree in math, will study poetry; another will train as a pilot with the USAF; another will work to combat breast cancer. Numbers of you will go to law school, medical school, and graduate school. But, consistent with the pattern Goldin and Katz have documented, a considerable number of you are selecting finance and consulting. The Crimson’s survey of last year’s class reported that 58 percent of men and 43 percent of women entering the workforce made this choice. This year, even in challenging economics times, the figure is 39 percent.

我们可以通过不同的方式来思考和回答这个问题。抢劫犯威利·萨顿对这个问题也有他自己的理解和回答。当他被问及为什么抢银行时，他答道:“因为那里有钱。”教你们经济学的克劳迪亚·戈尔丁和拉里·凯茨教授研究过上世纪70年代以来学生的职业选择并从中得出了类似的结论。他们还发现了一个值得关注的现象：尽管从事金融工作可以获得丰厚的报酬，但是仍然有很多学生选择从事其他行业的工作。事实上，你们当中已经有37人和“为美国而教：组织签约，1人将去跳探戈舞并在阿根廷从事舞蹈治疗工作；1人将致力于肯尼亚的农业发展；另有1人获得了数学荣誉学位，却转而去研究诗歌；1人进入美国空军接受飞行员训练；还有1人将从事乳腺癌的防治工作。一部分人将进入法学院，医学院或者研究生院继续深造。但是，正如这两位教授的研究结果现实的那样，你们当中的大部分人还是会选择从事金融，理财咨询等工作。去年的就业调查显示面临就业的学生中有58%的男生和46%的女生做出了这样的选择。而今年，即使经济情况如此复杂，还是有39%的毕业生做出了同样的选择。

High salaries, the all but irresistible recruiting juggernaut, the reassurance for many of you that you will be in New York working and living and enjoying life alongside your friends, the promise of interesting work-there are lots of ways to explain these choices. For some of you, it is a commitment for only a year or two in any case. Others believe they will best be able to do good by first doing well. Yet, you ask me why you are following this path.

有很多理由解释你们的决定，即高薪，具有成为财经界新成员巨大的无法抗拒的诱惑力，可以留在纽约工作和和朋友们一起享受生活，有意思的工作会大有前途等等。对你们当中的一些人来说，这样的选择只不过是一个一年到两年的合约，而另一部分人则相信只有首先获得成功才有能力去更好的发展。不过，你们依然会问我为什么会做出这样的选择。

I find myself in some ways less interested in answering your question that in figuring out why you are posing it. If professors Goldin and Katz have it right; if finance is indeed the “rational choice”, why do you keep raising this issue with me? Why does this seemingly rational choice strike a number of you as not understandable, as not entirely rational, as in some sense less a free choice than a compulsion or necessity? Why does this seem to be troubling so many of you?

我发现，在某种程度上我更喜欢思考你们为什么会提出这个问题胜于回答问题。如果两位教授的调查结果准确无误，如果从事金融工作的确是一个理性的选择，为什么你们还一直向我提出这个问题呢？为什么这个看似理性的选择让你们当中一部分人认为是无法理解的，是完全不合理的，而且从某种意义上说不是自由的选择，而是被逼无奈的选择或者需要？为什么这个问题会给你们这么多人造成困扰？

You are asking me, I think, about the meaning of life, though you have posed your question in code-in terms of the observable and measurable phenomenon of senior career choice rather than the abstract, unfathomable and almost embarrassing realm of metaphysics. The Meaning of Life-capital M, capital L-is a cliché- easier to deal with as the ironic title of a Monty Python movie or the subject of a Simpsons episode than as a matter about which one would dare admit to harboring serious concern.

我认为你们是想问我生活的意义是什么。你们问的如此隐晦。你们并没有直接询问那些抽象

并且晦涩难懂的形而上学的哲学范畴，而是向我询问“毕业生职业选择”这一可观察可衡量的问题。所谓“生活的意义”-生活，意义，早已经被人们谈论了千百次的话题，就如同电影《巨蟒和圣杯》这极具讽刺性的片名一样，或者像《辛普森一家》的主题一样，并不是一件具有严肃内涵的事情了。

But let’s for a moment abandon our Harvard savior faire, our imperturbability, our pretense of invulnerability, and try to find the beginnings of some answers to your question.

那让我们暂时的抛开哈佛一贯的处世之道，收起那冷静的面具，脱下那看似刀枪不入的伪装，尝试着去探索一下这个问题的答案吧。

I think you are worried because you want your lives not just to be conventionally successfully, but to be meaningful, and you are not sure how those two goals fit together. You are not sure if a generous starting salary at a prestigious brand name organization together with the promise of future wealth will feed your soul.

我知道你们很困惑，你们不仅希望人生能够实现传统意义上的成功，还想彰显它的意义，但是你们不确定如何把“生活”和“意义”有机结合起来。你们不确定在一个能够提供丰厚薪金的著名公司工作能否也能使你的精神也随着钱包充实起来。

Why are you worried? Partly it is our fault. We have told you from the moment you arrived here that you will be the leaders responsible for the future, that you are the best and the brightest on whom we will all depend, that you will change the world. We have burdened you with no small expectations. And you have already done remarkable things to fulfill them: your dedication to service demonstrated in your extracurricular engagements, your concern about the future of the planet expressed in your vigorous championing of sustainability, your reinvigoration of American politics through engagement in this year’s presidential contests.

为什么你们会有这样的困惑呢？在一定程度上讲这是哈佛的错误。从你们踏入哈佛的那天起，你们就被告知你们将是未来世界的领导者，将是我们可以依靠的最优秀和最聪明的人，你们将改变世界。哈佛对你们寄予厚望，而你们也已经用你们杰出的表现实现了这些期望：你们在课外活动中热情的服务；你们在对可持续发展的坚决用户中表现出了对地球未来的关注；你们参加了今年的大选并让美国政治重现生机。

But many of you are now wondering how these commitments fit with a career choice. Is it necessary to decide between remunerative work and meaningful work? If it were be either/or, which would you choose? Is there a way to have both?

但是很多人会发出这样的疑问：我们所做的这些跟职业选择有什么关系呢？到底有没有必要在高薪工作和有意义的工作之间做出选择呢？如果答案是肯定的或者否定的，那么你们又将如何做出选择，有没有一种方法兼顾两者呢？

You are asking me and yourselves fundamental questions about values, about trying to reconcile potentially competing goods, about recognizing that it may not be possible to have it all. You are at a moment of transition that requires making choices. And selecting one option-a job, a career, a graduate program-means not selecting others. Every decision means loss as well as gain-possibilities foregone as well as possibilities embraced. Your question to me is a partly about that-about loss of roads not taken.

你们不断地在问我，也在问你们自己这些根本性的问题：关于价值，关于如何协调那些潜在的竞争的事物，并且开始意识到鱼和熊掌不可兼得。你们正处在一个需要做出决定的过渡期，选择一份工作，一份事业还是读研。你做出选择的同时就意味着你无法选择其他两项。每个决定都会有得有失-你放弃一些机会的同时也扎住了另外一些机会。而你们所问的问题在一定程度上就是你们在做出选择后会失去什么。

Finance, Wall Street, “recruiting” have become the symbol of this dilemma, representing a set of issues that is much broader and deeper than just one career path. These are issues that in one way or another will at some point face you all-as you graduate from medical school and choose a specialty –family practice or dermatology, as you decide whether to stay in teaching after your two years with TFA. You are worried because you want to have both a meaningful life and a successful one; you know you were educated to make a difference not just for yourself, for your own comfort and satisfaction, but for the world around you.And now you have to figure out the way to make that possible.

在金融届，华尔街，“招聘”已经成为进退维谷的代名词，它们所反映的问题，远比选择一条职业道路更为广泛和深刻。你们每个人都将在某个时刻面临类似的问题：从医学院毕业后是做全科医生还是皮肤科医生？法学院毕业后是到公司做法律顾问还是担任公共辩论律师？在为“为美国而教”组织工作两年后，是否继续效力？你们很担心，因为你们想要即充实又无比成功的人生。你们知道自身所接受的教育不仅是为了改变自己，获得安逸和舒适的生活，还是为了改变周围的世界，为天下谋福祉。现在，你们必须思考要如何将其实现。

I think there is a second reason you are worried-related to but not entirely distinct from the first. You want to be happy. You have flocked to courses like “Positive Psychology”-Psych 1504-and “The Science of Happiness” in search of tips. But how do we find happiness? I can offer one encouraging answer-get older. Turns out that survey data show older people-that is, my age-report themselves happier than do younger ones. But perhaps you don’t want to wait.

我认为你们之所以担心还有第二个原因，这个原因和第一条原因有关，但是又有所不同。那就是你们想过上幸福的生活。你们为了得到一些生活的启示，于是蜂拥着去选修“积极心理学”和“幸福学”这两门课。那么我们如何才能找到幸福呢？我可以给你们一个鼓舞人心的答案，那就是变老。数据调查表明老年人，也就是像我这么大年纪的人，普遍感觉自己比年轻人幸福。不过，你们可不愿意等待。

I have listened to you talk about the choices ahead of you, I have heard you articulate your worries about the relationship of success and happiness-perhaps, more accurately, how to define success so that it yields and encompasses real happiness, not just money

and prestige. The most remunerative choice, you fear, may not be the most meaningful and the most satisfying. But you wonder how you would ever survive as an artist or an actor or a public servant or a high school teacher? How would you ever figure out a path by which to make your way in journalism? Would you ever find a job as an English professor after you finished who knows how many years of graduate school and dissertation writing?

我听到过你们谈论目前所面临的抉择，也听说过你们讲述自己面临的困惑：关于成功和幸福的关系。更具体的说，就是如何去定义“成功”以便它能够带来真正的幸福，而不仅仅是金钱和名誉。你们害怕一份报酬丰厚的工作或许并不是最有意义最能让满意的工作。同时你们也担心，如果去做一个艺术家，一个演员，一名公务员或者一名高中老师，自己该如何生活下去？你们是否曾经想过在媒体圈里该如何有所成就？你们可曾打算在结束若干年的研究生学业之后，在完成了诸多篇枯燥的论文写作之后，去从事一份英语教授的工作？

The answer is: you won’t know till you try. But if you don’t try to do what you love- whether it is painting or biology or finance; if you don’t pursue what you think will be most meaningful, you will regret it. Life is long. There is always time for Plan B. But don’t begin with it.

我的回答是：如果不去尝试，你将永远不知道答案。如果你不试着去做你热爱的事情-不管是画画，生物还是金融，不去追求你认为生命中最有意义的事情，那么你将抱憾终生。路漫漫，你会有很多时间去尝试其他的选择，但是千万别在一开始的时候就这样做。

I think of this as my “parking space theory” of career choice, and I have been sharing it with students for decades. Don’t park 20 blocks from your destination because you think you’ll never find a space. Go where you want to be and then circle back to where you have to be.

这就是卧关于职业选择的“停车理论”，在过去的几十年里我曾经和许多学生分享过这个理论。在你开车前往某个地方时，不要因为害怕目的地没有车位而把车停在离目的地还有20个路口的地方-先去你想去的地方，然后再绕回，去你必须去的地方。

You may love investment banking or finance or consulting. It might be just right for you. Or, you might be like the senior I met at lunch at Kirkland who had just returned from an interview on the West Coast with a prestigious consulting firm. “Why am I doing this?”she asked. “I hate hotels, I won’t like this job.” Find work you love. It is hard to be happy if you spend more than half your waking hours doing something you don’t.

你可能喜欢投资银行业或者是金融业又或者是理财咨询业，那么它很可能恰好就适合你。或者就像我在柯克兰吃饭时遇到的一位刚从西海岸一家著名理财公司面试回来的大四女生一样，她问我，“为什么要做这份工作，我讨厌坐飞机，我讨厌住旅馆，我不喜欢这份工作。”同学们，去做你们喜欢做的工作吧，如果你把一生大半的时间花在从事自己不喜欢的工作，你是不会觉得幸福的。

But what is ultimately most important here is that you are asking the question-not just of

me but of yourselves. You are choosing roads and at the same time challenging your own choices. You have a notion of what you want your life to be and you are not sure the road you are taking is going to get you there. This is the best news. And it is also, I hope, to some degree, our fault. Noticing your life, reflecting upon it, considering how you can live it well, wondering how you can do good: There are perhaps the most valuable things a liberal arts education has equipped you to do. A liberal education demands that you live self-consciously. It prepares you to seek and define the meaning inherent in all you do. It has made you an analyst and critic of yourself, a person in this way supremely equipped to take charge of your life and how it folds. It is in this sense that the liberal arts are liberal –as in liberate-to free. They empower you with the possibility of exercising agency, of discovering meaning, of making choices. The surest way to have a meaningful, happy life is to commit yourself to striving for it. Don’t settle. Be prepared to change routes. Remember the impossible expectations we have of you, and even as you recognize they are impossible, remember how important they are as a lodestar guiding you toward something that matters to you and to the world. The meaning of your life is for you to make.

最重要的一点是，关于生活的意义这个问题，你们不仅仅在问我，更是在扪心自问。你们在选择人生的道路，同时也是在向自己的选择提出质疑。你们对自己的人生充满着模糊的憧憬，你们不知道这条道路通向何方。你们有这种困惑对我来说是最好的消息。从某种程度上说，这是哈佛教育的结果。关注生活，反思生活，思考如何才能生活得幸福，探索怎样才能做出有意义的事情：这或许就是人文教育带给你们最有价值的东西了。人文教育要求你们有意识地生活，从来去探索并定义你们所做的所有事情的意义所在。人文教育使你们能够进行自我分析和自我反省，从而游刃有余地掌控你们的生活和其走向。这是这样，人文教育使你们更加自由，让你们拥有实践的能力，拥有发现真理的机会，以及做出抉择的权力。获得幸福和充满意义的生活的最可靠的方式就是通过自己不断地努力。同学们，不要停滞不前，时刻调整自己的人生路线，记住我们赋予你们的那些崇高的期望，即使连你们自己都觉得这些期望过高不易实现的时候，你们也一定要铭记，它们会像北极星一样指引你向着某个目标前进，这些目标对你，对整个世界来说都是至关重要的。生活的意义将由你们自己去创造。

I can’t wait to see how you all turn out. Do come back, from time to time, and let us know.我已经迫不及待想要看到你们的成就了。一定常回母校看看，告诉母校你们的情况。